Heart Attack Waiting to Happen

I was beside myself after I threw in more herbs with the sauteed fingerling potatoes and drizzled some CRÈME FRAICHE over them. I thought that I must've died or entered another dimension of space and time. Then I thought I'd make some basil ice cream.

I substituted the lemon verbena with basil and added a generous handful. I bought a LARGE bunch of it from chelsea market ("Do you have any lemon verbena?" "WHAT? LEMON JUICE?!" "that's ok, nevermind.") for $2, roots and all. I felt like it was such a waste and maybe I should quickly go home and re-pot it or something.

This is the first time I've made any ice cream, save for shaved ice in a snoopy sno cone maker and easy to make ice cream from powdered mix by the same people who made the easy bake oven. There are conflicting recipes for ice cream – some say to use heavy cream, some none at all, more parts heavy cream to less parts milk, some said only heavy cream and half and half (!!!!), but whatever it was, I wasn't going to do any dairy substitutions this first try, lest the proportions made my ice cream structurally unstable (too watery, an ice block, etc). The end result was extremely delicious and delightfully fluffy, but what I'd created was a heart attack waiting for me in the freezer, 6 egg yolks making very good friends with an army of heavy cream. I'm afraid to eat more than a teaspoon of it. Death by ice cream? More of a reality than ever.

If you were to do this, I suggest increasing the amount of whole milk and decreasing the amount of heavy cream such that you only use 3/4 of a cup of it.

Given I have a tub of death hanging out in my freezer, I might make a healthier friend for it. Maybe some blackberry and apricot sorbet. Or some blood orange, pamplemousse, basil and mint sorbet for when Pamplemousse comes to visit. I'm feeling better about the sorbet and won't be worried about halfing the sugar measurements and causing some horrible ingredient imbalance.

Ice cream isn't as daunting or complicated to make as you think. It's just a pain in the ass. It's a little like doing laundry, waiting an hour for your herbs to steep in the milk and cream, making the custard and then chilling it for another 2 hours, and putting it in the ice cream maker for another 20 minutes. In fact, I recommend making ice cream on the same day you do laundry for maximum efficiency. I also recommend making an omelette as well so the 6 egg whites don't go to waste.